Monster Zero
by Corvus no Genmu
Summary: He wasn't supposed to be here, not like this and certainly not in this disgusting body. Locked up as he has been for these last fifty-odd years, is there really a chance for "Monster Zero" to return to what he always has been? A hero?
1. An Angel

Me: Just a random idea I had after seeing the movie and noticing that Susan/Ginormica's uniform said "005" on it. I'll give a cookie to anyone that guesses the new monster's name correctly.

Bahamut: That isn't much of an award.

Me: One of Camille's cookies.

Bahamut: Alfergo! Bastio! Caladeon!

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**WARNING: STORY IS _AlternateUniverse_! MEANING CHANGES ARE MADE B/W THE FILM AND THIS STORY. Positive reviews are welcome. Flames will be used to roast smores.**

**DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.**

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Monster Zero  
**

By Corvus no Genmu the Prince of Slumberland

_An Angel_

It was a dark and foreboding night with the moon gone from sight and the stars shrouded amidst as swirling blanket of rumbling clouds crawled across the horizon. Lightning lit up the black sky in brief flashes, making the shadows of the earth below twist and extend into the shape of nightmares. Rain started to slowly fall before increasing into a torrential downpour. Lightning, thunder, and rain battled against the other for supremacy in their natural musical performance that only truly sensitive ears could hear and appreciate.

Too bad such ears were currently occupied with seeking salvation from the thunderstorm to do so.

It was not there immediately nor did it choose to be. No, its entrance into the storm was granted by means of a strange light like those found in the northern regions of ice and snow. This aurora, small and localized in the center of the mighty storm, tremble like water before its cargo came flying out like a bat out of hell.

It was flying through the clouds, just above the rain line though it obviously hadn't escaped the torrential downpour unscathed as frost coated its dark surface. A long tail served as a rudder for shining wings of light that, through miracle of strength or technology, managed to keep it aloft through the powerful winds. A blast of lightning shot down near it and with a loud screech, let its shocked pain be known to all those below for its voice rose above the rain, above the thunder, and down onto the earth where many awoke with a start at the sheer volume of the unearthly scream.

Many would begin a search on the ground, thinking one of their own had hurt or worse amidst the raging storm. Some would at best ignore the scream as a dream of their mind's fancy and return to slumber's sweet embrace while others would sit up and watch the night as the storm continued through. None would ever look into the sky where a winged shape could be seen falling amidst the rain and thunder to ultimately disappear into the canopy of the nearby forest.

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_"We've… lost contact…"_

"Warning… Warning… Severe d-damage to primary security sys-systems…"

_"It's gone! It's all gone! There's nothing there but destruction and death!"_

"Damages exc--d eighty p---ent of structural integrity…"

_"The Project was a failure, looks like we'll have to look to the Japs for help after all…"_

"B---System---spreading---"

_"I don't care if I'm tried for treason, I'm not going to sit back and watch as you let our world die!"_

"Failsafe… Initiated…"

_"Execute!"_

"WAKE UP!"

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He shot upwards, hands grasping at the branches of trees, too scared out of his mind to truly comprehend his body's strange motions as he drove himself upwards past the canopy of the forest. He had no idea where he was or where he was going, just that he had to _see_. The world past in blurs of green and brown before the black was seen amidst a sea of stars and a silent floating moon hung just above the horizon where waves of orange began to rise like a curtain, signaling the beginning of day.

He breathed raggedly, still tired from the flight through the storm and his sudden wakening did not calm his nerves any. The sounds of the forest rung loudly in his ears, something he had grown accustomed to over time but the sounds confused him. The sounds of nature were a foreign thing to him, a concept beyond imagination for all his life he heard nothing but the roars of destruction and the echoes of death.

But… the sky was _blue_ here, the air clean and, yes truly, pure! The trees and plants alive and basking with life under a shining sun. The sounds of people, real people alive and well, drifted on gentle, caressing winds. Unconsciously, wings spread out to catch the air, leather like sails spreading amidst bony fingers.

The sun cracked the horizon, sending its golden rays across the land.

He screamed, not because he was unprepared for the light but for its sudden intensity upon his eyes. He fell back to beneath the canopy, falling with the style of a feline through branches and leaves until he landed lightly upon the forest floor. He shook his head, dislodging fallen leaves from wire like strands of hair colored dark as fresh blood. He looked upwards to the heavens, trying to see the sky past the waves of green.

"What was that?" he spoke but paused. His voice was not his own, this was another sad truth that had become his reality but… there was something… wrong. The way his mouth moved, the way his tongue pressed against his teeth. It was wrong. He looked to the ground and heard more than saw the little insects crawling above and beneath the dirt. Hazel eyes narrowed and he knelt lower to the ground. His eyes could barely see the ants yet he could hear their every move with picture clarity. His eyesight was not much but he could still see as well as anyone else, even better when one took his advanced hearing into the equation so then why…

Why did he feel so blind?

An errant twitch at his back made him reach behind him for a good scratch but his serpentine tail beat him to it, flicking the odd irritation away before realization struck him. He had a tail and, dare he look… he turned and saw wings on his back, large and fully capable of lifting him to the clouds and beyond.

"No…" It was a soft-spoken denial for what he saw couldn't be true for if it was… "No, please god no." He ran, faster than human legs could go, wings and hands finding purchase on the ground and increasing his speed even more. The forest became a blur of green and brown, the foliage exploding around him as desperation drove him to something, anything, that could wake him from his darkening nightmare. It took some time but eventually, he had reached the outskirts of the small human suburb. He looked around, eyes narrowed against the harsh light, frantic and urgent for a reflective surface and saw an open window.

His ears told him of the interior of the house and quick as the wind, he was inside and crawling along the floor of the child's bedroom, moving slowly past toys and books left in the occasional corner. The young girl's breathing was even and slow, the sound of a heavy sleep. The day only just beginning, she would not wake on her own.

He rose slowly, the tip of his large ears brushing close to the ceiling despite him hunching over. He walked carefully, his ears primed for the slightest sound. His steps slowed as he approached the child's dresser with its large mirror angled just enough for his own reflection to be out of sight. His hand reached forward and he grimaced at maroon tinted flesh with fingers tipped in razor sharp claws. The hand that was-yet-wasn't his own gently grasped the mirror and tilted it down.

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_Roughly fifty years later…_

"Please! Somebody! I don't belong here! Let me out!"

"Hey, hey! That's not a good idea—!"

"Let me ooouuuut!"

The doors slid open with a loud hiss as pressurized air gently blew into Susan's face. She took a few steps back as burning green eyes suddenly opened in the darkness and a guttural sound like a lion's growl magnified several times over shook her down to her bones.

"Who disturbs my slumber?!" The eyes narrowed as they focused upon her, hanging high above her head and still hidden in the darkness. Whimpering softly, Susan took another step back as the eyes drew closer before suddenly lunging forward and attaching themselves to her face. She screamed and fell hard onto her already bruised behind.

Wings colored like fine wine spread wide as fangs shining with pristine clarity opened in a vicious grin. A serpentine tail curved behind a man's twisted body fused with that of a hellish bat's own. Where the doctor was a man's body with an insect's head, this poor creature was no simple puzzle with two definable pieces. He was man and he was bat at a singular moment, neither yet both all at once. His hands were tipped in sharp claws, short but deadly and though he walked like a man, he hunched himself over like a bell ringer with mammalian wings hanging like a cloak over his muscular shoulders. His head was a terrible fusion between bat and human and Susan dared to wonder if Dracula were truly real, this would be his face.

His nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed into thin slits against the bright glare of the lights. He grinned in a feral pleasure from where he stood balancing on her chest, tail raised high like a scorpion's own. "Do I frighten you, monster?"

The creature's ears suddenly twitched and he turned, scowling into the passageway in which he came. With his head turned as it was, Susan could see the collar attached firmly to his neck with a single green light shining on its metal surface. The monster turned to her once more and seemed to look past what normal eyes could see before snorting in disgust and flipping the sunglasses he wore back over his eyes. The monster moved to the small dinner table as a pile of uncooked steaks fell to its surface.

The monster had time enough to grab one of the steaks before the man that made his existence an everlasting torment entered the large chamber.

"Monsters, back in your cells!"

The bat monster's fist clenched tightly at the m-word but he made no move against the general. He grabbed a few more pieces of meat before retreating through the doorway that lead into his cell, sparing the giant woman a single accusatory glare before vanishing into the comforting darkness.

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"Rescind Dr. Cockroach's toyblox privileges. Immediately." He growled low in his throat, knowing what was coming next. He flicked down his sunglasses just in time as the light switch on in his cell. He hung upside down from the ceiling, his wings wrapped tightly around him as he enjoyed the last bits of his meal. He turned to regard the giantess outside the thick glass wall that separated him from his freedom. He took the bone in hand and crunched it in half with his bare teeth, turning to suck out the marrow and ignoring the general and monster both. Though he listened as he always did.

_"We had the uh, prison psychologist redecorate your cell. Try to y'all calm-like."_

_"But I don't want a poster… I want a real kitten hanging from a real tree… I want to go home…"_

_"Oh come on little devy please don't cry it makes my knees hurt. Don't think of this as a prison, think of it as a hotel you can never leave because it's locked from the outside! Oh, and ah, one other thing. The government has changed your name to Ginormica."_

"How original, did you make that up yourself or did a five-year-old assist you?" he muttered to himself, tossing the bones aside. His ears twitched and his fearsome visage fell into a dark scowl. He moved to the wall the separated his cell from Susan's own. He pressed an overly large ear to the wall and listened. Tears. She was crying. He stepped back from the wall and jumped upwards to the ceiling, hanging from the bar that served as his bed. So what he heard was true…

"Damn it…" He muttered, his ears folding down in a vain attempt to block out the sounds of her sorrow. He clung to the ceiling and crawled along its smooth surface until he reached the airshaft. With great ease and familiar practice, he tore it loose and managed to squeeze his head through. He whispered softly into the air duct, the long airways amplifying his changed voice to levels he could no longer reach. It wasn't a song he sang that often, which of course wasn't as often as it had been once upon a time but… he was sure she'd understand. She always cared more about other people than herself…

"I wish I had your pair of wings… Had them last night in my dreams. I was chasing butterflies, till the sunrise broke my eyes. Tonight the sky has glue my eyes, cause what they see's an angel hive. I've got to touch that magic sky and greet the angels in their hive. Sometimes I wish I were an angel, sometimes I wish I were you…"

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_To Be Continued...

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	2. My Immortal

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**WARNING: STORY IS _AlternateUniverse_! MEANING CHANGES ARE MADE B/W THE FILM AND THIS STORY. Positive reviews are welcome. Flames will be used to roast smores.**

**DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.**

**

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Monster Zero  
**

By Corvus no Genmu the Prince of Slumberland

_My Immortal_

He glared down at them from where he hung high up near the ceiling of the "common room" of their prison. Link was busying himself with his katas and failing at them quite miserably. Back in his prime, the ape-fish took to the martial arts like, well, like a fish to water but now? Well, he could have been great had Link not so blatantly started slacking off, assuming he reached his peak level. Insectosaurus, or Insecto for short, was watching the fish-ape's antics with childish amusement in her large eyes. He wondered how long it'd be before Link realized his best buddy was a female, one with a crush might he add. Oh well, it was bound to be entertaining to say the least.

B.O.B. was entertaining himself by playing solitare. Of course, the playing cards in question were actually cards from a variety of children's card games but the plasmoid found his fun and had managed to remember how to breath thus far… a miracle in itself.

He glanced down at Susan and repressed the urge to sigh. She had finally cracked under the pressure of being a monster and allowed Doctor Cockroach to try and cure her despite his obvious madness. Bad enough she was willing to accept help from a self-proclaimed mad-scientist but one who turned his head into cockroach's for the sake of nuclear survival? He shrugged and turned once more to his thoughts when the conversation below suddenly turned interesting.

"Um, doctor…? Did I do something wrong?" whispered Susan, leaning down with her hands on her knees so she was closer to the insectoid-human.

"Wrong, my dear?" The Doctor looked up from his latest contraption, a device made up of a toaster, several broken cd-roms, two forks, and a pair of half-moon glasses. The beginning of a homemade computer he called it. Susan's eyes looked to the ceiling and, following, Dr. Cockroach saw for himself what Susan was talking about. "Ah, I see. What makes you think you did something wrong?"

"He just… doesn't seem to like me that much," said Susan.

Dr. Cockroach frowned, knowing this was quite far from the truth. "It isn't a matter of liking you my dear, if anything, I'm sure our batty friend up there feels for you. He was the first monster Monger ever captured and was the cause of this facility's creation, however incidental his own circumstances were. In a way, I'm sure he feels responsible for your current predicament."

"I see…" She looked up towards him but he had hidden himself behind his wings.

Dr. Cockroach glanced to the ceiling, his antennae twitching, knowing a change in topic was in order. "So tell me my dear, I'm sure your stay here isn't enjoyable but it is bearable at the very least, yes?"

"It's okay… I've had trouble sleeping sometimes but then I listen to the music on the radio and my troubles seem to just, I don't know, wash away." Susan sighed, remembering the music from her first night. It wasn't a song she recognized but she had fallen in love with the lyrics.

"Radio?" Dr. Cockroach looked up from his experiment. His antennae suddenly twitched and he smiled coyly with sudden realization. "Ah, so that's what it is, is it old friend?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"Nothing, nothing. Just an old man being fickle as always. Now, you might feel a slight tickle in the diaphragm…"

He rolled his eyes and curled his wings tightly around his monstrous form. He held no such thing as guilt, at least, not in the way the Doc imagined. He was guilty, that he could not deny but for what was his business alone. He didn't know how he remained untouched by time but if whatever god there was still left in heaven had wanted him to survive even as he was there had to be a reason.

There just had to be.

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He was the first one in the common room, not truly a surprise of any sort but he was alone for the better part of an hour before Susan showed up for breakfast and Bagorah realized rather quickly why the male monsters, plus Insecto, were allowed to stay in their cells today instead of their usual gathering in the common room. Monger, that damn old-coot of a general, likely ordered the others to remain in their cells and was doing this as a sick form of payback. Susan reeked of blood and from the way she was holding her stomach, he had a rather good idea as to what time of month it was.

'_This will be the day that I die so bye, bye Miss American pie…_' He blinked and turned to see Susan sniffling as she stared down at her plate of oatmeal with the most heartbroken look he had ever seen. Without further warning, the giantess broke out in tears, pressing her face down on her arms atop the large table.

He sighed tiredly, his ears closed tightly against her loud sobs, and flew up to her table and crouched on all fours before her. He honestly didn't know what to say but sometimes the simplest approaches work. "Stop it already. I highly doubt any animals were harmed in the creation of this oatmeal." A lame joke but it got her to stop crying long enough to look up at him.

"I'm… I'm sorry… I just…" she gasped before breaking down once more into tears, her arms wrapping around her middle. "I just can't stop!" Sighing, he glided down and landed on her lap and pulled her hands back and pressed himself against her stomach. Her tears stopped and a red flush fell across her face, born from embarrassment or anger he didn't really want to know so he quickly proceeded with his plan.

Susan blinked and slouched back in her chair, a lazy smile on her face as he worked his magic. "Oh my…"

He paused and looked up at her. "It'll feel better if you lie down on—" She didn't give him a chance to finish as her hands reached down and scooped him up as she hastily got out of her chair and laid down on the floor. She held him near her breast as her other hand reached down and pulled up her shirt just enough for him to be placed down just below her navel. His skin darkened a deeper shade of red and he looked up at her in concern, wondering if her hormones and lonliness for her fiancé were affecting her better judgement but she stuck her lip out in a pout, her eyes watering.

"Please?" she asked softly.

Sighing, he nodded and laid down along her stomach, purring like a rumbling earthquake, massaging her aching insides with his sonic manipulations. It wasn't as much as he could do but it was the best he could work with what with the blasted collar strapped to his neck. He didn't know how long they laid there like that only that it had to have been a few hours for he heard the delivery systems working on delivering their mid-day meals before the food actually arrived. He wondered if it was a good time to try and eat since he had missed breakfast when his "patient" suddenly spoke up.

"Have you really been singing to me every night?"

His hair rose on end and his tail straightened before relaxing and drawing idle circles on her warm skin, earning a small giggle from the giantess. '_Hrm, ticklish are we?_' He spoke in the voice of an old man's. "Whoever said it was for you?"

"Who is it for then?" she asked, more curious than snide, at least to his ears.

"For someone…" What could he say, for his ears weren't the only ones listening. "Who wasn't afraid to try and push back the wind…"

"To push back the wind? Is such a thing possible?" she spoke more to herself than to him but he heard her nonetheless.

"To change the way it blows, to force it back." He looked up towards the lights despite the pain it brought to his unshielded eyes. His voice sounded strange, foreign even to himself, and whispered "To not accept what it brings. I, want to push it back… but I'm too scared to try."

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That was the first and only night he did not immediately sing for her as the lights went out in the vast underground facility. Though she still had her mind and heart focused on getting back to her life with Derek, Susan felt completely embarrassed and ashamed of her actions earlier. She knew how crazy she could get during the time but really, the way she acted… Oh god, how was she supposed to look Derek in the eyes after this? Not that couldn't right now but still… she felt like she had cheated on him in a fashion though all she really did was try and seek comfort from a friend.

"I'm so tired of being here, suppressed by all my childish fears…"

Susan sucked in a breath and slowly sat up in her bed. She could barely hear the words this night; no doubt he was embarrassed to be called out on his, well, serenades as she personally liked to call them. If it wasn't for Doctor Cockroach and Link both agreeing to B.O.B.'s admittance to his singing skills, Susan doubted she'd have believed it. How could anyone, man or monster, sing with such a perfect reflection of the original song from the singer to the instruments? She stood carefully from her bed and leaned down along the wall, pressing her ear to the airvent that connected their two rooms.

"And if you have to leave, I wish that you would just leave. Your presence still lingers here and it won't leave me alone." Susan's eyes narrowed and she strained to listen to the song. "These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real… There's just too much that time cannot erase… When you cried, I'd wipe away all of your tears, when you'd scream, I'd fight away all of your fears, and I held your hand through all of these years… but you still have all of me… You used to captivate me by your resonating light. Now, I'm bound by the life you left behind."

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_To Be Continued...

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	3. Through the Fire and the Flames

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**WARNING: STORY IS _AlternateUniverse_! MEANING CHANGES ARE MADE B/W THE FILM AND THIS STORY. Positive reviews are welcome. Flames will be used to roast smores.**

**DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.**

**

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Monster Zero  
**

By Corvus no Genmu the Prince of Slumberland

_Through the Fire and the Flames_

"Over the last fifty years I have captured monsters on the rampage and locked in a secret prison facility. So secret that the very mention of its name is a federal offense!"

"Is he referring to Area Fifty—" Dart in the neck! "Urgh!"

"Mr. President! Say hello to… Bagorah!"

The blank screen came alive with a horrible black-and-white visage of a fanged devil, screaming in a silent rage. A feminine scream permeated the war room at the sight of the horrible creature as it flew through the air at speeds greater than the jets of that by-gone decade. Though moving quickly, one could see that the creature, though being more bat than man, wore a strange form of armor over its lower body but it was hard to tell just where the armor began or ended for how well it was fused into the flesh. The man-bat suddenly twisted in midair grasping a harppon in clawed hands and wrenching the attached tank high into the air and tossing into the pursuing jets.

"Part man, part bat, and with more combat sense than all my soldiers put together, Bagorah is as dangerous as he is intelligent." Monger spoke with a hard glare in his eyes at the frozen visage of the monster in mid-attack on the army. He clapsed a small device hidden in a pocket of his jacket. "Though he's a flight-risk, I'm sure that he'll be our ace-in-the-hole, Mr. President. I can promise you that."

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"I'm gone for ten minutes and what the hell do I find?!" yelled Bagorah as he fanned Susan's face with his wings, glaring at the concerned Dr. Cockroach. "We made a deal, doc! No electrical chimeric monstrosities that you call inventions! Damn it, if ya didn't fry her brain I'm sure she'll be so pleased to find that she's grown rather than shrunk!"

"I was so sure it'd work this time…" mumbled the doctor, going over his little notepad. "Whatever that alien energy is… I don't think I can eliminate it with today's technology…" Bagorah resisted a snappish comment about roach-headed cavemen when he heard Susan groan and her eyes flicker.

"Yo, ya'lright in there?" asked Bagorah, taking a western accent.

"Am I small again?" she asked. The bat monster sighed, his shoulders sagging. Some people just had no proper sense of priorities…

"I'm afraid not my dear." Dr. Cockroach sighed as he and Bagorah jumped down to the floor as Susan sat up. Bagorah snorted and hid his face behind his wings. Susan looked like she had stuck her finger in an electrical socket with her ivory-tinted hair standing completely on end. "In fact you, eheh, might have grown a couple of feet, ahem."

Susan sighed and sat down in her chair. "It's okay, Doc. We'll try again tomorrow."

"You really don't get it do ya?" asked Link, finally fed up with Susan's desire to return home. "No monster has ever gotten out of here!"

"That's not true!" argued B.O.B. "The Invisible Man did and so did Bagorah!"

The maroon-skinned monster growled like an angry bear at the reminder. Five times he had managed to taste outside air and that was more than a decade ago at best. "I'm still here, fool."

"And Inviso-Bill didn't either," said Link, looking rather guilty. "We just told you that so you wouldn't get upset…"

"He died of a hear-attack twenty five years ago…" said Doctor Cockroach.

"NOOOO!" cried B.O.B. tears in his eye.

"Yeah, in that very chair." Link pointed at the solitary chair sitting in its own private corner. "He's still there." Bagorah rolled his eyes. A joke gone too far and it still was haunting him. His ears twitched and he looked towards the south wall as Link continued, "You see what I'm sayin? Nobody's leaving, nobody's getting out." The door suddenly opened and General Monger skidded onto the scene via his old army jeep.

"Good news, monsters! You're getting out!"

A brief moment of stunned silence before a loud an exuberant crow came from a grinning Bagorah, " Until today!"

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"So let me get this straight, Monger. You want us to fight an alien robot?" asked the Missing Link, suspiscion with a dash of sarcasm mixed into his voice.

"And in exchange, the President of these United States has authorized me to grant you your freedom."

"Ah, I can't believe it!" Susan gushed, hugging herself with glee. "Soon I'll be back in Derek's arms." She glanced down and frowned nervously. "Or he'll be in mine…"

"Oh, I can't wait until spring break back at Coco Beach." Link grinned, already imaging the bikini clad girls and white sands with crashing blue waves on a red horizon. "Freaking everybody out."

"And I'll go back to my lab and _finally_ finish my experiments," said B.O.B. with unnatural seriousness.

"No, no," said Dr. Cockroach. "That's me, B.O.B."

"Then, I'll be a really giant lady."

"That's Susan, B.O.B." Dr. Cockroach sighed. Really, it was like dealing with a five-year-old with an attention span of a hummingbird.

"Then, I'll go and find a way back home and save the world or die trying!" B.O.B. struck a heroic pose even as Bagorah nearly stumbled into him.

"That's—" Dr. Cockroach blinked and looked to Link who shrugged. "I don't know who that is."

Bagorah crawled up to the rafter of the carrier jet that would be taking them to the alien robot's location and sat there with his ears firmly clamped shut over his eyes and his claws digging into the steel girders. "I hate planes…"

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He rubbed his neck, feeling the raw skin untouched by the sun's light for the better part of fifty years. When Monger had removed the collar, Bagorah had been incredibly tempted to do the man in then and there but truly, what would it have gained him? After all these years he was finally allowed a chance to return home.

That is… if there was even a home to return to…

The jumbo-carrier landed in a slow vertical descent, signaling their arrival. Sighing to himself, Bagorah flipped down his sunglasses and watched as the doors opened to reveal a shining sun glaring down upon them from its roost in the midafternoon sky.

"Let's move out!" yelled Monger, putting the pedal to the metal and flooring it forward in his jeep. The monsters followed slowly behind him, looking around with wonder in their eyes.

"This is San Fransisco!" gasped Susan, looking down and smiling at her friends. "This isn't far from my home!"

Bagorah looked and saw the Golden Gate Bridge, whole, complete, and filled to the brim with angry traffickers as the army helped to evacuate the city. All in all, he supposed this was what it was like before, but the records of such things were few and those who kept them were far from the dangers that he flew headlong into on a daily basis.

"Ah… feel the wind on your antennae… Isn't this wonderful?" asked Dr. Cockroach, with a pleased smile on his bearded face.

"I haven't been outside in fifty years. It's, it's amazing out here!" exclaimed B.O.B., his eye popping out of his skull-less head.

"It a little hotter than I remember. Has the earth gotten warmer?" asked Link. "That'd be great to know that. That'd be a very convenient truth."

Bagorah took in a deep breath of air, spreading his wings to feel the gentle carress of the breeze. "I've forgotten how good this feels…" His ears twitched and his eyes snapped open beneath blackened shades of glass and plastics. An impact tremor the likes of which sent instincts within him screaming, memories old and new flashed across his mind.

The starry black; an endless sea and questing for the perfect hunt. A monolithic titan, the ultimate prey and the perfect challenge, too great a one in fact. The call, unresistable even in the expanse, urging the return. People, so many innocent people, dying in an instant, those left alive being far from human anymore. The last ditch effort to safe their country ending in an explosion of epic proportions.

The mists blew away in a sudden gust and Bagorah saw for himself the cause for their sudden release. It was a machine, plain in design and shape with a set of four legs that moved in a tortoise's gait, one step at a time. A single blue-tined eye stared down at them from its cylindrical head as though curious about the insects that rest down at its feet. The thing was gigantic, easily matching Insectosaurus' stature of a hundred meters if not more.

Bagorah snarled deep in his throat. This machine was nothing. Amazingly high stature or not, this was nothing in comparison to what he had once seen in the old archives. It was a child's toy, compared to the everyday horrors his past life had been.

"Hoo-eee! Now that's a robot!" exclaimed General Monger, looking more than pleased by the monolithic space-machine's appearance and steady approach.

"It's huge…" stated Susan, kneeling down beside the general in shock at the robot's massive size.

"Try not to damage it too much, monsters!" General Monger backed his vehicle into the jumbo-carrier jet. "I might want to bring it back to the farm!"

"Wait!" Susan jumped to her feet even as the doors to the jumbo-carrier started to close and its engines roared for take-off. "You didn't say anything about being huge! Wait, don't leave!" The carrier lifted off and away even as Susan tried to reach up and grab it back down despite its grander size.

A pale-blue beam of light suddenly shined down upon the monsters, turning their attention back to the alien robot. The robot seemed to be studying them further, obviously being aware of the sudden change in plans by the local earth government forces.

"I think it sees us," B.O.B. whispered before sliding forward and calling out to the machine with expressive hand gestures. "HELLO! HI! HOW YOU DOIN'? WELCOME! WE ARE HERE TO DESTROY YOU!"

"I can't fight that thing! I can't even—I've never—" gasped Susan, back on one knee with a hand pressing on her chest. "I'm hyperventilating!" She took several deep breaths, looking panicked out of her mind. "Does anybody have a giant paperbag?!"

"Re-lax." Link grinned, flexing the fingers of his webbed hands. "Ol' Link's got this under control."

"Go hide in the city Susan, you'll be safe there." Dr. Cockroach said, thinking back on what he read of San Fransisco and suddenly remembering. "Ah, watch out for low overhangs!" he called after her retreating form.

"Finally some action, eh Bagorah? … Bagorah?" The Missing Link looked about but the man-bat was up and flying away from the scene. "Hey! The robot's that way!"

"This isn't my fight!" Bagorah's voice spoke as though he were still there next to them. "I have my freedom, I don't need anything else!"

Bagorah flew higher, a red dot vanishing in fields of white and tinted shades of blue. This wasn't the past, that much he already knew, but this world so like his own held an undamaged history he had only read about in fairy tales. He had to see for himself if this world was truly untouched for, if nothing else, it could serve as a refuge for those he left behind and would soon return to. He didn't care that he was doing the same thing again, leaving behind friends and allies. At least, that's what he told himself as he continued to fly with firm resolve, never once looking back until he heard a familiar voice screaming with fear.

He stopped and turned sharply, hovering in midair. '_Susan!_' He started to fly back towards the city but stopped. '_This isn't my fight. Not my world, not my problem._' But what if there wasn't a world to go back to? What if he was all that was left? For fifty years he had dealt with this conundrum and even now he could not come up with a firm answer. That is, until he looked down upon the silent device strapped firmly to his wrist.

_"On a cold winter morning, in the time before the light, in the flames of Death's eternal reign we ride towards the fight. When the darkness is falling down and the times are tough all right, the sound of evil laughter falls around the world tonight. Fighting high, fighting on for the steel through the wastelands evermore, the scattered souls will feel the hell, bodies wasted on the shores!"_

Bagorah's fist clenched. He wasn't one of them anymore, he wasn't anything of true value anymore. He was a monster, a malformed creature of futuristic science and primordial sorcery but… though his body wasn't of the same caliber, that meant nothing when weighing the price of his soul.

He dove downwards, back towards the city.

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Bagorah glanced downwards and smirked before diving down to fly alongside Susan. "I must say I'm surprised. You never mentioned you could skate."

"I can't!" yelled Susan, her arms whirling as she tried to keep herself upright while racing away from the robot which had, for whatever reason, found her as a worthy quarry to chase. Bagorah was admittedly surprised by the machine's speed considering its size but really, it was to be expected in such situations.

"Well you're doing admirably," spoke Bagorah in an officer's voice. He glanced down at the cars the giantess was using for skates and spoke more to himself, "Dang, you're lighter than you look…" Unfortunately, Susan heard him and shot the bat monster a dirty look before stumbling again and focused more on getting away from the alien robot.

"Can't you do something!?" she gasped and twisted around a lamp-post, taking a sharp right turn downhill towards the Golden Gate Bridge.

Bagorah cursed and followed close behind, gaining further speed to fly just ahead of her. "I've an ace up my sleeve if that's what your asking!"

"Well, take it out then!"

"Not on the first date, sweetheart!" Bagorah grinned cheekily and looked back at the robot, which had suddenly disappeared from sight but not his hearing. Speaking of… "Jump!"

"Waugh!" Susan, more startled than anything, did as Bagorah said and managed to clear the toll-gate to the bridge, filled with evacuees fleeing in their cars. "Excuse me! Coming through! No control here!" Bagorah shook his head and suddenly smirked as he recalled an old joke involving side-mirrors and large objects. The humor soon died however as a truck, its driver distracted by Susan's rapid approach, slammed into the divider and fell upon its side, effectively blocking off the rest of bridge. Tailing too closely behind, a car slammed just far enough into the truck's trailor to be tightly wedged beneath it.

"Oh no…" gasped Susan before she skidded to a stop just ahead of the accident.

"Oh fsck!" Bagorah twisted tightly in midair, looking past the wreckage to the the approaching robot. '_It's too close, I can't do it here with all these people still on the bridge!_'

Susan was already on the move, kneeling down behind the truck's trailor and lifting it up. "Okay! It's going to be okay! I'm going to get you out of there!" she said to the driver of the trapped car. She reached down and pulled it back from the down truck and letting it drop. "You have to get off the bridge before—"

"Susan, move!" Bagorah pulled hard on Susan's hand and managed to get her to stumble forward just enough for the robot's claw to miss her by a hair. The other claw shot forward but became entangled in the bridge's suspension cables. People were screaming and running for the lives further down the bridge but those closer to the attacking space-robot were trapped on two sides, unable to escape from their cars.

The robot slumped forward, pushing the bridge down and slowly twisting it on its side. A doorway opened in the robot's chest cavity, revealing two rows of spiked drills that chomped like motorized jaws at the rubble that started to fall into their crushing embrace.

"Ah!" Susan struggled to hold her grip on the bridge's other side with Bagorah holding her other hand tight and pulling as hard as he could but with her struggling and massive weight he was having a hard time of it. Fortunately, salvation came in the form of a vasely oversized grub appearing on the scene with a burbling roar. The robot looked up just in time to get an eyeful of Insectosaurus' web-snot. The robot stumbled back, its head twisting to and fro as it futilely tried to rid itself of the hardened substance as Insecto pulled the bridge back down to its proper level.

Susan quickly back-crawled away from the robot with Bagorah safely clutched in her hand. Well, safely being a relative term as she was squeezing him rather tightly.

"Coming through, stop blocking!" The pair turned their heads and saw an exhausted Link making way towards them with B.O.B. and Dr. Cockroach following close behind. Tired and exasperated with the whole situation, the Missing Link ambled over to the other monsters, looking up at Insecto.

"Heya, Furball," he gasped for air, "where ya been?" Insecto burbled a reply to which Link chuckled and stretched his back. "Yeah I know, papa's a little out of shape!"

"Excuse me!" interjected Susan, sounding panicked and waving at the robot and unknowingly squeezing the air out of Bagorah's lungs, cracking a few of his ribs in the process. "It's trying to kill me! Why's it doing that?! Why—AAH!" The robot's claw clamped down on them both. The monsters gasped in shocked horror only for their horror to turn to wonder as Susan pried the claws open from the inside. Bagorah flew out and away from the giantess as she stepped back out the claw while still struggling against its pressing weight. The robot suddenly took a lumbering half step forward, send a good portion of the bridge down into the water and tilting it downwards again. Susan fell back onto her behind but quickly shot a leg out to stop the cars filled with people from tumbling into the water.

"Wow…" B.O.B. said in awe. He gave her a double thumbs-up for her effort. "You're doing great!"

"I'm doing everything!" she yelled back at the trio, her eyes blazing with feminine fury.

"Not for long! Come on you guys!" yelled Link. Cracking his knuckles he jumped forward to attack the robot. "Let's take this thing—" A spark of intensified blue light and Link was reflected back and with twice the force, effectively knocking him out.

"A deflector shield, how typical." Dr. Cockroach scowled at the sheer simplicity of the design. Really, who wouldn't give an advanced alien robot such a thing? The least they could do was make it flashier but what did aliens know about the art behind science? With an insect's speed, the doctor crawled up Susan's body and ran along the robot's arm to stand just parallel of its smashing mouth. "You can't crush a cockroach! Mwahahaha!"

Of course the Doctor's confidence was well-founded, nothing short of full blown obliteration on a infinite scale could kill a cockroach after all, but Dr. Cockroach had forgotten one small detail about cockroaches. While quite indestructible in their own regard, they were quite capable of feeling pain, especially the scale that Dr. Cockroach was introduced to via the alien robot's smashing mouth.

By the time he had reached the robot's core central processing unit, the insectoid human was quite dizzy and severely brain-addled from the trip and so didn't think quite as properly as he should have when he grabbed two random wires and stuck them together, electrocuting himself and nearly shooting himself down an airshaft.

Outside, the robot's eye suddenly lit up with mesmerizing blue light, effectively hypnotizing the massive Insectosaurus and taking the monster out of the battle without even touching it.

"Insectosaurus! Insectosaurus!" Susan called up to the massive monster but it remained unresponsive. She turned and her eyes fell upon B.O.B. and saw that the sentient pile of ooze was busy staring at something on the distance. "B.O.B.!"

"What?" he asked, still lazily staring at the horizon.

"Help me!"

"Sorry, I was just staring at these birds over there…" B.O.B. chuckled to himself. He hadn't ever seen a bird before so really, it was rather understable were the situation not so dire.

"We have to get these people off the bridge!" exclaimed Susan, grunting and pushing the claw back as she slid forward a few feet.

"On it!" B.O.B. reached over and picked up a car and lifted it high over his head, preparing to toss it into the water.

"No, no!" yelled Susan, speaking to the blob monster as though he were a child. "Move the dividers!"

B.O.B. stared at her for a moment before realization struck. "Oh, yeah. You're right. My bad, hahaha!" He set the car back before grabbing one of the street dividers and swallowed it halfway down his throat. The thing was absorbed almost instantly and B.O.B. moved on to the next one as Susan yelled for the poeple to getting going. The cars sped past her with no further incedents though a few came close to smashing into each other in their hurry to escape. When the last occupied car had left the scene, Susan searched for the anyone to help her.

"Link?!" But the aquatic monster was comatose, still hurting from the deflector shield. "B.O.B.?!"

"I don't feel so good…" And the blob didn't look it either with chunks of concrete floating in his bloated body and a half-eaten divider hanging in his mouth.

"Bagorah?!" yelled Susan, desperate and worried for she hadn't seen the flying monster since the start of her grappling match. A piece of the bridge's suspension cables suddenly fell right in front of her face. Susan followed it and saw that the cable was tighted to the robot's wrist and the other was just within reach.

"Okay, okay! I can do this." Susan pushed herself to her feet and shoved the claw back. She grabbed the two cables and pulled with all her might, bringing the two claws closer together and throwing the massive robot's sense of balance completely off kilter. The robot began to fall forward and Susan, suddenly aware of where the robot would fall, raced out of the way, scooping Link and B.O.B. into her arms just as Dr. Cockroach leapt out from the robot's shoulder joint and landed atop her head. She stumbled and fell forward and onto her side just as the robot slammed down onto the bridge and into the surf.

The robot made an angry squealing sound as its head turned around to face the sky and the winged shaped hovering high above it. Bagorah hadn't run away as Susan had assumed but neither did he take part in the battle. Instead, he stayed above the robot, the air around him vibrating with sonic energy as he powered his most devastating attack to the fullest. It had been close to fifty years since he had been able to unleash his full potential and he honestly had no idea if he even could anymore but that didn't mean he wasn't about to try.

His jaws opened in a roar of godlike proportions, shattering the sound barrier several times over and plowing down into the robot with the strength of an Armageddon-class meteor. For miles all around there wasn't an ear that was spared from hearing the terrible sound, startling instincts several millions year in the making. To many, this was the sound of the predator giving voice to its victory over its prey, to others, it was the sound of a devil's fury upon whatever poor fool that had earned its wrath. The robot's deflector shield turned the thing a shining shade of blue before it fell under Bagorah's power and the robot's body was crushed like a tin can.

The bat monster hovered high above the devastation, his roar echoing to the horizon before he released a soft breath and fell like a dying kite, twirling in half-worked circles to what remained of the bridge and where his comrades, his friends, stood. He was caught in gentle hands and though he was incredibly tired from the exertion of his attack, Bagorah mustered enough strength to give a soft smile and speak with a voice that had belonged to a man he would have died for, once upon a time, "Through the fire and the flames… we carry on…"

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_To Be Continued...

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_


	4. My Last Breath

**WARNING: STORY IS _AlternateUniverse_! MEANING CHANGES ARE MADE B/W THE FILM AND THIS STORY. Positive reviews are welcome. Flames will be used to roast smores.**

**DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.**

**

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Monster Zero  
**

By Corvus no Genmu the Prince of Slumberland

_My Last Breath_

"Three weeks ago, if you had asked me to defeat a giant alien robot, I would've said "No can do!" but I did it! Me! Oh, I'm still buzzing, did you see how strong I was? There's not a jar in this world I can't open!" Bagorah twisted around on his roost in the rafters of the jet plane ignoring Susan as she gushed beneath him. He ignored the following conversation in favor of regaining some strength. Being out of practice for so long, his sonic scream took a lot more out of him than he realized. More than that however was the fact that his attack didn't work the way he wanted it to.

Oh, it worked splendidly as it was, there was no denying that, but it was not his full potential. He had wanted to destroy the robot cleanly without any further damage to the Golden Gate Bridge but he couldn't. Admittedly, it wasn't something he himself could do even… before… but it was something Bagorah was famous for. Okay, not the whole truth but seeing as there were only two such kinds of monster… His thoughts were interrupted by a Susan's sudden declaration.

"I'm not going to be a giant forever. Derek won't rest until we find a cure for my… condition… We're a team."

"We could all do with a Derek." Dr. Cockroach sighed, imagining it for himself. "Perhaps someday we could make his acquaintance."

"Really? You guys want to meet Derek?" asked Susan.

"Not me." Bagorah muttered, unfortunately too loudly as the giantess turned her head to look up at him.

"Oh my, is that a hint of jealousy I hear in our old bat's voice?" quipped Dr. Cockroach, his antennae twitching. He was used to Bagorah's sullen mutterings and did not ignore the opportunity.

Bagorah snarled like an angry tiger, startling poor B.O.B. who quickly ducked underneath Monger's jeep. "I… Am… Not… JEALOUS!" Bagorah looked away, a hand straying to his throat to massage the soreness away.

B.O.B. choose the wrong moment to suddenly regain his courage with a sudden bout of memory and inspiration. "Baggy and Susie sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"

Bagorah's eyes narrowed. "I'm warning you, you walking pile of ooze…"

"First comes love, then comes marriage, then… uh… then what Dr. Cockroach?" B.O.B. looked to residential scientist for assistance.

"A baby carriage I believe." Dr. Cockroach smiled indulgently at the plasmoid.

"Roach!" roared Bagorah, at normal audio levels.

"What's the problem, bat-man?" asked Link. "Ain't like your wife's waitin' on ya."

Dr. Cockroach's mirthful smile vanished in an instant and he sent Link an angry look, unknowingly mirrored by B.O.B. which was a feat in itself for it was his own reaction, not one he mimicked. Link's ear-fins drooped as he winced. "Aw, man, I'm sorry I didn't mean—"

Bagorah was atop the jeep with his wings spread wide and his claws dug in tight, looking positively furious at Link. It took all the self-control he had not to unleash a sonic scream and much more to not tear the ape-fish apart. "Don't you ever, EVER, talk about her like that ever again, do you hear me? Or I'll make sure that you truly earn the name Missing Link."

"Bagorah—" Was all Susan got to say.

"Shut up. I don't want to hear anything from any of you damn monsters." Bagorah spoke harshly. The doors opened and without another word, Bagorah was up and moving faster than their eyes could follow. He could hear them still by the time he reached the cloud line but this time, he did not look back.

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Hold on to me, love… You know I can't stay long… All I wanted to say was I love you and I'm not afraid…

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Derek calmly exited the studio building, the last and, as far as he knew, only one still there. Susan was a vanishing sight on the horizon, her white-haired head bowed and her arms wrapped tightly around herself. If one were to have the ears for it, they could hear the sound of her tears falling to the ground with her hushed sobs. Derek didn't bother to even glance in Susan's direction, uncaring that even if he desired to, his voice would never reach her from the distance between them.

_Perfect._

Derek's key had just entered the door to his car when a serpent's tail wrapped tight around his wrist and wrenched his arm tight, earning a girlish scream as the man was lifted bodily into the air a good several yards. Landing on the edge of the building's roof, Bagorah took a relaxed seat, his claws gripping the cement to better balance himself as his wings spread themselves to inspire greater fear in the human.

He leaned forward to stare face-to-face with the love of Susan's life. His grinned at the man's childish blubbering, his fear too great for him to form competent words but Bagorah managed to piece enough of them together to realize the man wanted his life spared and he'd do anything for it, no matter the price.

"So, it's your life you value most then." Bagorah slowly started to swing Derek back and forth over the ground, "From your conversation with your _ex_-fiancée I had assumed it was your career you cared most about."

"Wha-What do you want with meeeee?!" Derek squealed, shivering with clear fright at the fifty-feet of open air that separated him from the ground.

Bagorah's grin widened and his vibrant green eyes glowed in the night's darkness. "I had wanted to meet the man who delivered to me an angel but now I see the man is the devil's snake with the poisoned apple held firmly in its jaws. You destroyed a part of her that will never be fully healed, the innocence that every child has in their heart. The part of them that believed there is such a thing as love and happily-ever after. You took the child she was and killed it mercilessly; all for your own selfish goals."

Bagorah's tail tightened on Derek's wrist as he held the man close to his face so that all he saw were Bagorah's hellish eyes. "I've seen things more horrible than you could ever dream about in your darkest nightmares. I've watched cities burn to ash as the sky bled. I witnessed good people die for those who'd sooner dance on their graves than do anything as noble as sacrifice. I watched the _"better men"_ try to justify the deaths of countless people for the greater good of those _"more deserving to live"_."

Bagorah's grip on Derek's wrist tightened to bone-breaking levels and he spoke over the man's screams of pain. "I had to watch my wife beg for mercy under a man that knew no such thing before, at last, he graciously allowed her to die when she was of no more use to him and his crusade. I have seen evil and I know the best way to deal with it."

"I—I—"

"Don't try to win me over with excuses and lies, I can tell the character of a man by the beat of his heart. You are a fool, a coward, and an incompetent, incapable of doing anything on your own, caring nothing for anyone but yourself." Bagorah growled angrily, sounding like an enraged demon. His ears twitched and his eyes took a quick glance of the sky before he suddenly sighed as though tired of the conversation. "Goodbye, Derek."

Bagorah released his grip.

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Can you hear me? Can you feel me in your arms? Holding my last breath, safe inside myself are all my thoughts of you… Sweet raptured light, it ends here tonight….

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"Why did I ever think life with Derek would be so great anyway? I mean, look at all the stuff I've done without him! Fighting an alien robot? That was me, not him, and that was amazing!" Susan knelt down close to the ground to better see her newfound best friends. "Meeting you guys, amazing." Her eyes fell upon the Doc. "Doctor Cockroach, you can crawl up walls and build a super-computer out of a pizza box, two cans of hairspray—"

"And a paperclip!" Dr. Cockroach positively beamed with pride.

"Amazing!" Susan turned to Link. "And you, you hardly need an introduction, you're the Missing Link! You personally dragged 250 co-eds off Cocoa Beach and still had the strength to fight the National Guard!"

"And the Coast Guard and also the life guard." Link toothily grinned at the memory.

"Amazing!" At that moment, the amazingly stupid yet remarkably sentient pile of slime. "B.O.B., who else could fall from unimaginable heights and end up without a single scratch?"

"Link?" A confused plasmoid pointed at said ape-fish.

"You." Susan deadpanned.

"Amazing!" B.O.B. cried with glee.

"And Bagorah… he can mimic any sound there is with perfect clarity and who else could defeat the air force in a single attack?" Susan sighed, wishing the bat monster was there. Silently thinking of the things he did for her without any hesitation on his part. He sung her sorrows away; he soothed her pains, and kept her embarrassing moments between them. He was a true friend and she missed him.

Insectosaurus stomped onto the scene, bellowing loudly. Link nodded, understanding the giant monster's words. "Good point, Insecto!" He turned to Susan with a grin on his apelike face. "Susan, don't shortchange yourself!"

"Oh, I'm not going to shortchange myself." She rose to her feet to stand in all her near fifty-foot glory. "Ever again."

B.O.B. gave her a double thumbs-up. "Testify!" Doc Cockroach and Link chuckled, feeling good about themselves despite their admittedly bad time with Susan's parents and friends.

"DOOOODGE!" Bagorah's voice echoed on the horizon as the bat monster came bearing down on them but it was already too late. A beam of ethereal light fell down upon Susan, voiding the laws of gravity and dragging her upwards towards the clouds where a gigantic spaceship hovered above.

"SUSAN!"

Insectosaurus roared and fired a stream of webbing that attached itself to the bottom of Susan's shoes, holding her in place despite the pull of the ship's tractor beam. By now, Bagorah was appearing onto the scene when the bottom of the spacecraft opened with magenta-tinted lightning zapping around its surface, condensing into an orb the size of a small house. The giant grub let out a startled burble, her eyes widening as the blast came barring down upon her.

"Insecto, look out!" yelled Link but it was too late. The energy attack slammed into her like a ton of bricks, burning the webbing into dust on the wind as the mighty Insectosaurus fell to the ground with earthquake force. Bagorah stopped in shock but his eyes narrowed and he shot forward and up after Susan, just managing to clear the doorway as it slammed shut on them.

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I'll miss the winter… a world of fragile things… Look for me in the white forest hiding in a hollow tree. Come and find me… I know you hear me… I can taste it in your tears…

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"Bagorah…?"

"What?" he snapped, his back to her as he glared out at the darkness from the confines of their shared holding cell. The bars were of obviously alien design, held and maintained by some form of energy that Bagorah had never seen before so he wasn't too willing to try and break out, especially with Susan sitting practically on top of him in the limited space of the cell.

"I…. Why did you come back…?"

"Why didn't you dodge?" he returned with a snippy tone before sighing and shaking his head, ears flapping. "I'm sorry… it seems that I'm not cut out to be the hero after all…" An uncomfortable silence stretched between the two of them.

"… Were you really married?" Susan suddenly asked. Bagorah hunched his shoulders, his wings folding tighter over his body. "I'm sorry, if it's too personal—"

"Her name was Theresa." Bagorah whispered just loud enough for Susan to hear. "She was my partner even before we were married. She and I were alike and different, two sides of the same coin really… She was more selfless than I and she wasn't scared of anything. Her only concern was for the welfare of others, too much so in fact… I can't sing for myself but Theresa… she found music in the littlest thing and not one of her songs contained any of the tragedy that surrounded our lives. She was my friend, my partner, and my heart."

"What happened to her…?"

"She was murdered." Bagorah growled deep in his throat, remembering the screams, the stench of blood, and that monster's laughter in the dark. Susan started to say something in response but stopped when Bagorah held up a clawed hand, his ears twitching. "Our captor approaches."

Susan nodded and steeled herself for whoever, or whatever, was approaching.

Dark sinister laughter echoed in the hangar. "You must be terrified. You wake up in a strange place, imprisoned by a strange being riding a strange floating device. Strange isn't it?" The alien was squid like in body though its upper torso was slightly humanoid. His four eyes were alit with victory and his fishy lips were pulled back in a devilish smirk.

The two captive monsters exchanged sardonic smirks of their own.

"Puh-lease." Bagorah snorted. "This is so last century."

"We've been through this once before." Susan agreed.

Gallaxhar's antennae drooped to match his own deflation at his prisoners' reaction. "… Wow. You two really get around don't you?" He turned his back to them and shouted, "To the extraction chamber!" The prison pad lifted up and slowly floated along after Gallaxhar as he headed into a deeper portion of the ship.

"Look, what is it that you want from me?" asked Susan. She was, after all, the intended captive not Bagorah. The bat-monster twitched his ears, glaring out into the darkness of the hangar, his eyes widening. There were hundreds of those giant robots, all thankfully deactivated but once they were turned on…

Gallaxhar turned and snarled, "You have stolen what is rightfully mine!"

"I didn't steal anything from you!" denied Susan.

"Your enormous, grotesque body contains quantonium. The most powerful substance in the universe." He turned, his four eyes spinning in their sockets. "Did you really think you could keep it from me?"

"That's what this is all about?" hissed Susan, growing angrier by the second. "You destroyed San Francisco, you terrified millions of people, you killed our friend just to get to me?!"

"Ack-ka-ka! Silence! Your voice is grating on my ear nubs!"

Bagorah climbed up Susan's body and crouched atop her head. "You want grating?! Listen to this!" Bagorah's mouth opened in a terrible scream that shook the platform about like a boat in the midst of a storm but the energy field held firm despite its vivid rippling. Gallaxhar's grin widened on his pasty blue face. He heard the terrible sound but its power was lost beyond the energy field that imprisoned Bagorah with Susan.

"An excellent attempt but I've long since prepared my ship for your kind, korghan."

Bagorah's eyes widened in shock. "How do you—"

Gallaxhar laughed, turning away from the stunned bat monster. "Who do you think hunted your kind to extinction out in the black?"

Susan's eyes widened and she stared at Bagorah in shock. "You're an alien?"

"Not… exactly…" Bagorah muttered, his voice sounding like a child's whose hand had been caught in the cookie jar.

"It doesn't matter anyway. Neither of you will be around to see what the power of quantonium can really do in the tentacles of someone who knows how to use it!" Gallaxhar all but crowed in triumph.

Susan glowered and pulled back her fist. "I know how to use it just FINE!" She punched the force-field but her hand was repelled back.

"Don't bother," sneered Gallaxhar. "That force-field is impene-AAH!" Susan's hand burst through the field and smacked the alien's hovercraft, nearly sending him flying. "What the flagnod?!"

Righteous female fury had enveloped Susan as she pushed the energy field apart before it finally failed and dissipated completely. The top of the prison pod dropped down on the two monsters but Susan caught it with ease and tossed it at Gallaxhar who made a quick retreat into a long hallway.

Bagorah snarled and flew up after him but was stopped short by a wall slamming down between him and Gallaxhar who turned and sneered at Bagorah as Susan stomped up behind him. "Ha! That should stop your puny—AAH!" Susan slammed the wall down with ease and tried to snatch the annoying little bugger out of the air but he just managed to escape her grasp and took off for the center of his ship.

"Computer! Close door hangar two!" SLAM! "… Close door hangar three!" CRASH! "Close them all!" But Susan crashed through them all with Bagorah trailing close behind. Salvation came to Gallaxhar in the form of a shaft large enough for him but too small for his giant pursuers. Breathing a sigh of relief he continued on toward the extraction chamber when a familiar scream echoed in the shaft. "Oh space balls!" He pressed the hovercraft to its maximum speed as Bagorah turned the sharp bend and came after him, launching another sonic scream in the process.

Things got all the worse for the alien as Susan used Bagorah's screams as a means of guessing where Gallaxhar would be and so slammed hole after hole into the shaft in her attempts to crush the alien like the squid that he was. It was one of these close hits that managed to damage Gallaxhar's hover craft just enough to send him tumbling through the air before exiting the air shaft into the vast extraction chamber and landing on one of the gangplanks. Susan came crashing onto the scene and landed on the far end of the gangplank as Bagorah hovered beside her head.

Gallaxhar's skin turned a sickly color of indigo but grinned when he saw just how close he was and made for a hasty run to the Q-Extractor 3000 activation lever. Susan charged after him like a vastly oversize rhino while Bagorah came swooping down like a falcon, fully intending to rip off at least one of the alien's squiddy little legs. Gallaxhar wrapped his tentacles tight around the lever and pulled it down just in time to trap Susan and Bagorah inside a large glasslike chamber.

Susan growled and punched the glass hard, cracking it badly while Bagorah's fanged mouth was open in a silent scream as cracks appeared around him, spreading like a spider's web. Gallaxhar had little time left if he was to get out of this alive. "Computer! Begin extraction!"

A series of acknowledging beeps before the extraction chamber worked its magic and the green-tinted quantonium was absorbed out of Susan like ethereal smoke. Fortunately for her, having sweat, bled, and cried in her "uniform", it too had absorbed portions of the quantonium and so shrunk with her until it was only just a little bit too baggy. The monster that would have been Ginormica was now and truly a human woman named Susan Murphy. All in all, Susan had gotten what she had wanted ever since the meteor struck her and she became a giantess.

She turned, gasping for air from the exertion and the pain and felt her heart close in a vice made entirely of ice. Bagorah was lying on his back, the color of his skin pale as milk and the pupils gone from his eyes. His wings were torn and ragged as though they had aged several years and truly Bagorah looked more than his age. He was barely breathing and now completely blind in all ways. He could barely hear the beat of his heart but by its rhythm he knew.

He was dying.

"Bagorah!" Something was falling on his face, wet and salty… tears… Susan's tears… He felt the warm of her arms, holding her to him, weeping for him, trying to save him despite her own weaknesses

He breathed deeper, to get enough air to speak despite the pain from doing so and for the first time since he became Bagorah did he speak in the voice of Bastian Shrike, the man he once was.

"Say goodnight… don't be afraid… calling me… calling me as you fade to black… Holding my last breath… safe inside myself… Are all my thoughts of you, Sweet Raptured Light… it ends here tonight…" Bagorah's eyes slid closed and he sighed his last breath.

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_To Be Continued...

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_


	5. Body Breakdown

**WARNING: STORY IS _AlternateUniverse_! MEANING CHANGES ARE MADE B/W THE FILM AND THIS STORY. Positive reviews are welcome. Flames will be used to roast smores.**

**DISCLAIMER: I OWN WHAT IS MY OWN.**

**

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Monster Zero  
**

By Corvus no Genmu the Prince of Slumberland

_Body Breakdown_

_"Bastian… Bastian, can you hear me?"_

_"Ooh my aching cranium…"_ Pale green eyes opened slowly, taking in the world around them with something of a neutral air. "_… This doesn't look like Heaven…_" In point of fact, it didn't look like anywhere to him for all he could see was an endless ocean of black. He couldn't even see, or even feel, himself and he wondered whether or not that was a good thing.

"_That is because you are neither dead nor dying, Bastian. You are merely… between._"

He looked around, trying to find where the voice was coming from but even with his advanced hearing, the woman's voice, for it was obviously female, seemed to come from every direction at once. More than that though, he could not shake the feeling he knew that voice but from where he could not recall…

"_Uh… so… I'm in a coma?_"

A soft sound of laughter that sent a strange shiver through him. "_Nothing like that, Bastian. You've spent the better part of fifty years under an incomplete BioMerge; it will take a while until your body returns to its natural form._"

He blinked rapidly at that. "_… How long is "a while"?_"

"_Hmmm… about fifteen minutes, give or take._"

He couldn't help but laugh, hard enough that he was sure tears would be falling down his eyes. "_I've waited nearly half-a-century to bust out of prison, I think I can handle fifteen minutes!_"

"_Yes, your patience was always one of the things I admired about you._"

That earned an instant halt of laughter from him. "…_ Now, I might be agreeing that I tend to talk to myself and that this is all a big work of my subconscious but if there's one thing I ain't its egotistical. Who are you?_"

"_Bastian…_" A soft sigh. "_I'm sorry but this is as much as I can do to talk to you like this._" He felt a pair of hands cup where his chin would be were he human before lips as soft as velvet pressed gently to his own. "_You'll always keep a place in my heart, Bastian, but don't let the piece of me block anyone else from entering yours._"

He felt his heart painfully starting to beat and air was fast becoming a priority, but he had to know, "_Theresa…?_"

"_Bagorah the monster is dead now, Bastian… its form and powers are now fully yours to command…_ _Go Bastian, be the hero I know you are._" The blackness was fading, replaced by a glowing intensity of light as he felt himself rising upwards. "_Goodbye… Bastian…_"

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_"Take the prisoner to the incinerator, she's useless to us now…"_

A pale finger twitched.

**"… System reboot in progress…"**

_"I may not have a brain gentlemen… but I have an idea…"_

A small twitch changed to a strong flex.

**"Purging daikaiju DNA sequences…"**

_"We need to find the main power core."_

Fingers tightened into a closed fist, drawing close to the device strapped around a bony waist.

**"Daikaiju DNA purged, full restoration at seventy… eighty… ninety… one hundred percent."**

_"Bagorah's… Bagorah's dead and it's all my fault!"_

A painful grimace as bones and muscles slid once more to their proper order.

**"All systems ready."**

_"Attention all aliens! Destroy all monsters!"_

Pale green eyes snapped open.

"Execute! Kaiju Spirit Evolution!"

"WAKE UP!"

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The vast number of Gallaxhar clones roared as one as they charged forth like a living sea to act out their creator's orders. Dr. Cockroach placed himself between the onrushing horde and Susan with B.O.B. standing beside him as Link's back arched, his fins vibrating with rage.

"You want some of this?!" He roared, ready to charge forth into the fray when a terrible sound ruptured the air and brought the swarm of alien clones to a skidding halt. The sound echoed once more, sounding like a vicious roar of a very angry predator. The vast ship shook with the sound before a small shape leapt up from the depths of the ship. Twisting in midair, the figure landed lightly in front of the assembled monsters.

Dressed in a dark maroon bodysuit with matching armor, the man was dressed rather like a superhero though he appeared more like a villain for the bony protrusions on his knees and elbows, not to mention the quill-like hairs that fell along the back of his skull to mid-back. He turned his helmet-covered head to the monsters who gaped in astonishment at its bat like design with large "ears" curved forward in a sharp arc and a secondary pair of lower jaws at the mouth of the helmet. It had no visor but two small dots that served as eyes that were a familiar shade to a certain ex-giantess.

"Ba… Bagorah…?"

He didn't answer save for the smallest of nods as he turned to face the horde of clones. "So who wants some?" asked the transformed Bagorah, looking at the army of clones before suddenly pointing at one closest to the fore. "You. You want some!" Before the Gallaxhar clone had any chance to deny that he wanted any, Bagorah moved swiftly and without mercy. "_Ultra Sonic!_"

Another horrible sonic scream ripped forth from the small metallic disc in the "jaws" of Bagorah's helmet, the Hypersonic Sonar Gun. The entire first troop was blown away, their bodies turned back into whatever concoctions that made them subservient clones. The one clone Bagorah had picked out of the crowd was fortunate enough to expire without the agony of its atoms being ripped to shreds.

Bagorah looked back at his friends and cocked his head. "Well? We gonna kick some butt or what?"

Link shook his head, stunned at this turn of events but grinning with the same primal savagery as before. "Guns up, let's do this!" He charged forward into the next wave, fists and feet flying.

"LEEROOOOY JENKINS!" Bagorah chuckled, shaking his head as B.O.B. rushed past him, swallowing and expelling clones as he went. The doc was moving on all fours beneath them on the bridge, heading for the main power core. Bagorah looked back to Susan who held her loose clothes in one hand and one of the alien ray guns in the other, staring at him with wide shimmering eyes.

"Hey, what's with the tears?" asked Bagorah, truly confused by Susan's reaction. "Not happy to see me?"

Susan didn't say anything, choosing actions over words by rushing forward and embracing the taller Bagorah tightly, crying loudly into his chest. "Yo-You jerk! I th-thought you were—! You stupid jerk!"

Bagorah stiffened in surprise before slowly pressing a hand to her shoulder, hugging her to him with his head bowed. The ears of his helmet twitched and he pulled Susan up into his arms, bridal style, and took the ray gun from her hands and firing it in multiple bursts at a small horde of clones. "Let's shelf that idea for later, sweetie!" Bagorah turned and followed after B.O.B. as the plasmoid had a better trail to follow than the sporadic Link.

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"Ha! Look at that, they're running scared! Monsters win!" the Missing Link grinned with pride as the clones ran as fast as their tentacles could carry them.

Susan eyed the flashing red lights that lit up the extraction chamber of Gallaxhar's ship. "I don't think that's why they're running…"

"Ship will self-destruct in T-minus five minutes…" came the computer's voice.

Bagorah, Dr. Cockroach, Susan, and Link exchanged wide-eyed looks while B.O.B. simply sat back and smiled. Link took off on all fours with Doctor Cockroach close behind him with scuttling insect like movements. Bagorah swept Susan up into his arms once more and raced after Link and the doctor. B.O.B. stared after them in confusion before deciding to follow along with the game and managed to actually overtake Bagorah and Susan. The doors rumbled before they started to close with enough speed that none of them would make it in time. At least, not as Bagorah was. The Bat Rider reached down to the device on his wrist when he was suddenly pulled back and up into the air by Link.

"What the—?!" Bagorah struggled to balance atop the alien hover scooter Link had commandeered. Link's other hand reached out and pulled the Doctor by his antennae as B.O.B. impacted against the front of the hovercraft with nary but a loud bout of childish laughter. Unfortunately, bearing to much weigh at the fore, the hover scooter began to precariously dip forward until its front bumper skidded against the floor. Already well aware of the upcoming crash, Bagorah threw back his arm as far as he could before throwing it, and Susan, as far forward as he could.

"Eeek!" Susan flew through the air like a human baseball, holding tightly to her loose clothes as best she could though that didn't stop Bagorah from getting a surprising eyeful. Thankfully, his helmet hid the blazing blush across his nose.

'_I see London, I see France, I gotta peak at her underpants._' Bagorah suddenly blinked. He leapt off the rapidly wrecking scooter and landed lightly on his feet just as the door slammed shut and the remaining three monsters barrel-rolled right into it as the tail end of the scooter, the non-hovering portion, broke into pieces around them.

Bagorah quickly stuck as much of his fingers as he could between the two doors and struggled to push them apart. Link jumped up to stick to the door above him and struggled just as much but even with the two of them together, the door wouldn't open.

"It's no use." Link dropped down as Bagorah stood back. The amphibian monster scowled at the door. "It won't budge."

"Stand back." Bagorah spread his arms as though preparing for flight and the trio of monsters hastily moved to stand behind him. "_Ultra Sonic!_" The supersonic scream slammed into the door with the force of a cannonball the size of a football field and the only effect it had was to echo in the vast, crumbling chamber.

Bagorah ceased the attack in time to hear the soft pounding of the door from the opposite side. "If I was still Ginormica, I could do this!"

"Now's not the time for what-if's. Get out of here while you still got the chance!" said Bagorah, his voice amplified enough to be heard through the thick door.

"No! Don't say that! I'm not leaving you guys!"

"Yes you are!" stated Doctor Cockroach. "Rendezvous with Monger. He's outside the ship waiting for you. Go while there's still time."

"Ship will self-destruct in T-minus four minutes…" The computer suddenly announced.

"Don't you worry about us, Susan." Link pressed his hands against the door. "You finally have a chance to get your old life back."

"I don't want my old life back…" whispered Susan.

Bagorah, having heard her as clear as day, pressed his hand to the door, imaging Susan doing the same on the other side. He didn't know what he could do or say to make her leave but maybe he didn't have to say anything as he heard the sound of the alien hovercraft tech activating and Susan's rapidly diminishing heartbeat. Bagorah's shoulders sagged with relief and his eyes drifted down to the device strapped to his belt. Did he dare…?

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"Total annihilation in T-minus one minute."

The only safe portion of the extraction chamber was, ironically enough, just beneath the extraction device itself as large mechanical bits of the alien ship began to topple and fall with rapid increase around the four of them. Link looked around fearfully before sighing and, knowing time was almost up, held a webbed hand out to the doc.

"It's been an honor knowing you, Doc." Doctor Cockroach glanced at the offered appendage for but a brief moment before smiling and grasping it in his own.

"The feeling's mutual." He responded.

Link turned to Bagorah and though he stared at the former bat-monster's new form, he bowed straight and true with his hands at his sides. "Thanks for the lessons, sensei."

The Bat Rider blinked beneath his helmet in surprise. Link hadn't called him 'sensei' since the early eighties when the fish-ape had begun slacking off, but the sentiment was appreciated all the same. "You aren't the best of students…" Link's sentimental smile turned to a scowl but Bagorah continued, "But you are one of the best of friends, Link."

"I'll see you guys tomorrow for lunch." B.O.B. announced with the same solemnity as Bagorah, who shook his head at the plasmoid's choice of words. So much for a better sense of intelligence…

"That's right, B.O.B." smiled Link, indulging the sentient pile of ooze.

"And there'll be candy and cake and balloons." Doctor Cockroach supplied to better lift B.O.B.'s spirits.

"Cake and balloons for lunch?!" B.O.B. looked like Christmas had come early. "It's gonna be the best day ever! I love you guys!"

Bagorah smiled but suddenly twitched and looked upwards to see a particularly large piece of machinery toppling down towards them. He didn't have a choice now, it was now or never. He reached down for the device on his belt buckle but paused with disbelief at the sight above him. The other monsters had cringed down and were slowly becoming aware of their savior.

Ginormica.

"By Hawking's chair…" Bagorah shook his head at the doc's words but he didn't disagree. It was a startling surprise to see her here in her former, admittedly larger, glory. Susan tossed the machine away and gathered the four of them up in her arms and jumping down like a diver just in time as the platform finally gave way behind them. Susan held out a fist and closed her eyes tight as she punched her way through the hull of the alien ship. They flew through the air before landing painfully onto the ship's primary weapon.

Susan lost her grip on the guys from the impact and rolled along the base of the lower-ship until she managed to just grip the edge in time before falling completely off. Now hanging by just a hand, Susan frantically looked for the others and saw B.O.B. rolling past her. She grabbed a hold of him just as Link did the same. The Doctor was the only one not downright clinging to anyone as he had more of a death grip on the prehistoric fish-ape's tail than anything else. Still, there was one person missing.

"Bagorah…!" Susan looked around frantically for a spot of red and found it. She cried out in terror as Bagorah fell through the air far down below them, not bothering to try and save himself as he fell. "Where's Monger?!" If he was here, he could save Bagorah first and then them, which was all Susan cared about.

"He's supposed to be here!" roared Link, feeling a dark betrayal in his heart.

"He said the only reason he wouldn't be here is if he was dead!" called Doctor Cockroach.

Bagorah thought that the man had better be to have pushed him to do this, but there was no other way. He had to do it. He reached down to the device on his belt and turned it in a full circle.

"Safety protocols disengaged. Initiating BioMerge System." The eyes of Bagorah's K-Zector glowed brightly with energy.

'_Silent screams and shattered dreams of what we left at seventeen, still lost within the misery and pain that lies inside._'

"Three…" A flex of clawed gloves, leather like material straining as DNA began to break apart and come together.

'_Here, alone the fight to breathe, still searching for the truth to be blackened by the burning fire held deep inside my mind!_'

"Two…" Muscles grew exponentially as bones broke and rearranged themselves beneath darkening flesh.

'_Far beyond the lost horizon, standing on the shore; across the seas their hearts will bleed this life we're waiting for. Taste the steel, in pain you kneel, for glory we defend…_'

"One…" Bagorah's head tilted back as he loosed an unearthly roar that echoed into the depths of space.

'_Our fallen souls will rise to fight again!_'

"BioMerge System, initiated."

Susan and the other monsters stared down in shock at the rapidly approaching beast. If they were to be called monsters they had no idea what to call this terrible creature. It was barely half the size of Insectosaurus but it is still remarkably large all the same, topping fifty meters in height but not in length for its serpentine tail is twice as long as it was tall. Its bat like wings were spread wide and its secondary set of mandibles, which rested just outside its lower jaw, spread wide into another roar as it flew upwards toward the monsters. Susan felt fear grip her heart for a brief moment before she looked into the beast's eyes. A familiar shade of green against skin colored like fine wine…

She smiled and released her grip just as the giant bat flew down beneath them. She landed roughly on its back, just short of the bony protrusions that ran along the back of the monster's neck.

"By Einstein's hair…" Doctor Cockroach leaned forward inquisitively, his antennae falling back from the wind. "Is that you, old bat?"

Bagorah turned its head to regard the passengers on its back. Its outer jaws pulled back into a devilish grin before it turned upwards at a sharp angle, pumping its wings faster and faster until it was well and away from the spacecraft as it exploded into a great burning ball of fire and roasted shrapnel. The great ears on the bat's head twitch and he hovered in midair and looking towards the horizon. Shaking its head, Bagorah looked down and carefully landed down onto the streets of Modesto, California.

Bagorah lowered a wing to serve as a slide for the others and watched in amusement as Link slid down like a skateboarder while B.O.B. rolled after him with the protesting Doctor Cockroach in his gelatinous arms. Susan spared a small glance at Bagorah and slid down after the others.

"Ahahahaha! Yeah!" Link crowed to the crowd of people standing before the monster crew but immediately deflated at the screams from the three girls closest to him. "Oh great…" Before suddenly smiling in surprise as the trio leapt at him, hugging him tightly and kissing him on his scaly cheeks. "Oh boy!" He fell back in surprise.

"Susie Q!" Susan looked down and smiled.

"Daddy!" She kneeled down to better see her parents who looked more than happy to see their daughter again.

Bagorah watched in silence behind them before its ears twitched and it glanced once more behind them towards the sky. It smiled and stepped back to the side as much as it could as a large fuzzy insect flew downwards towards the street. Link neatly dropped the girls to their feet as he and the others whirled around in shock to see a familiar yet very different face coming down for a landing.

"Insectosaurus!" Link yelled, waving his arms like an ape. "You're alive!" He took notice of the large monster's new form, specifically the large wings. "And… you're a butterfly…" Then he noticed something that was more obvious than that and had his eyes bugging out more so than the Doc's. "You're a GIRL?!"

General Monger parachuted down next to the monster crew with a smug grin. "And it only took you forty years to figure that out."

Insectosaurus burbled, smiling and striking a feminine pose with her new arms. Link's nearly fainted from the shock while B.O.B. pointed at her with a loud, "I KNEW IT!"

Bagorah shook its head and wrapped its wings tight around its body. Its body became enveloped in a cloak of light. The form of the monstrous bat slowly shrunk down and shifted in shape and size until it vanished with a small burst of light. The crowd stared in astonishment while the monsters, and one old war-veteran of a general, felt their jaws drop at the sight before them. It was a human man dressed in rather ratty looking clothing that had seen better days. His hair, colored in a pale shade of red, was brushed back along his head and cropped rather short. Over his eyes was a pair of dark-tinted sunglasses.

"Ba-Bagorah…?" Susan questioned, reaching out to him but stopping short of touching him.

He smiled and removed his sunglasses, revealing eyes of greenish yellow. "Actually…" He spoke in a voice that was, for once, completely his own that betrayed his Norse origin. "The name's Bastian. Bastian Shrike." He smiled and reached up to grasp her finger in a human-sized handshake. "Nice to meet you."

Link ambled over and looked him up and down. He lifted a scaly finger and poked Bastian in the chest a few times. Bastian repressed a laugh at how bug-eyed the Missing Link looked. "You… you're a human?"

"Last I check, yes." Bastian nodded. That was more than enough for Link. The last thing he heard before his face met the road was B.O.B.'s triumphant cry of, "I KNEW IT!"

Bastian glanced down at the comatose monster before glancing up at the concerned Insecto. "Ya know, he took that better than I thought he would."

"Excuse me! Hello! Coming through! How are you?" A familiar and not quite welcome face pushed himself through the crowd to stand before the kneeling giantess. "Susan!"

"Derek?" Susan stared in surprise at her… at Derek, not just for his sudden appearance but for the fact that he was sporting a very thick neck-brace that, quite frankly, made him look absolutely ridiculous.

"Golfing accident," he said quickly by way of explanation before getting straight to the point. "Baby, I thought long and hard about what happened between us." Unseen by the crowd and the monsters, Bastian stood back in Insecto's large shadow, shoulders hunched and a dark scowl on his face. As much as he wanted to otherwise, he remained out of Derek's way. Susan deserved the chance to be happy with the man she loved, if she wanted to. "And I want you to know… that I forgive you."

Of course, that didn't mean he had to like it. Bastian felt his canines extend in his tightly clenched mouth and he was sure the whole crowd heard the dark growl from his throat but passed it off as an explosion from the debris of the alien spacecraft.

Susan couldn't help but stare at Derek in astonishment. "You forgive me?" She repeated, not quite believing that he would actually say such a thing.

"Of course. It wasn't your fault you got hit by a meteor and ruined everything. And you know what? I say maybe you didn't ruin everything. I just got a call from New York. They offered me network. All I have to do is get an exclusive interview from you" Bastian felt the claws on his hands pierce the flesh of his palms.

"Really?" His ears twitched and a feral grin spread itself on Bastian's face at the tone of Susan's voice.

"Yeah. I get my dream job and you get your dream guy. It's a win-win for Team Dietl."

"In that case, as Susan Murphy's personal assistant in such matters as the press and media, I'd like to take this moment to say something." Bastian stepped between Susan and Derek with a disarming smile. He placed himself directly in front of the camera. "We live?" At the cameraman's nod, he turned and grinned at Derek. "In short, we'll accept any offer for an interview provided that one Derek Dietl is NOT on their payroll. In point of fact, we refuse to even acknowledge any such network that allows association with this scum-sucking jerk."

"HEY! Who do you think you are?!" Derek shoved the camera away from Bastian.

"Oh Derek, Derek, Derek…" Bastian tutted sadly, scratching lightly at the younger man's chin with a wicked sharp claw. The would-be news anchorman looked positively sick for he was starting to put together just who, and what, Bastian was. "Forgotten me already? It's perfectly understandable. When last we spoke, I looked just. Like. THIS!"

Bastian's flesh burst apart in sickening streamers as the face of a hellish bat burst force, jaws snapping at Derek's throat. The man squealed like a schoolgirl and fell to a dead faint. Bastian smiled smugly at the confused crowd of onlookers for they had not seen what Derek had seen thanks to his subtle audio-hypnosis.

"Bagorah." Bastian turned sharply to face General Monger, a dark scowl on his face and his eyes narrowing dangerously.

"Monger."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the pair, one felt particularly strongly by the monsters. Though B.O.B. was clueless to it, the Doc and Link both were well aware of the animosity between the former bat-monster and general. Though freshly roused and confused as heck over the situation, Link knew that whatever was going to happen, it was going to be explosive.

"I have… a request." Monger suddenly stated with his usual authority.

Bastian couldn't believe the man's gall. "I spent over fifty years in a prison cell thanks to you." he snarled. "For fifty years I was collared like an animal, kept away from freedom for so long I've damn near forgotten the warmth of the sun, the gentle light of the moon, the caress of the wind, and the allure of the open sky. For fifty years I've wanted nothing more than to see you finally kick the bucket, just so that I would have the opportunity to spit on your grave. I helped to save the world from an alien invasion and yet here you stand before me, daring to ask anything more of me?"

"I would." Monger tossed something to Bastian which he caught without even looking to see what it was. He knew the man wasn't foolish enough to toss a bomb at him with so many innocent people nearby. He looked down at his hand and was surprised to see a large set of keys.

"And these would be…?"

"The keys to your 'prison' as you so eloquently put it." Monger stated. "I've just been promoted so I'm requesting that you accept being placed in charge of the facility."

Doctor Cockroach's jaw dropped while Link's eyes nearly bugged out of his skull. B.O.B. merely tilted his head to and fro, trying to recall just where, and what, the facility was. Insecto seemed not to care though she was smiling knowingly while Susan smiled brightly at the idea. Bastian himself looked as though Monger had suggested he do something illegal with a fish.

"You… Are you insane?" Bastian held out the keys as though they'd bite him.

"Possibly so, yes. I'm still your commanding officer, don't ever doubt that, but you will be the one in charge of them when out on the field." General Monger gestured to the monsters, his shit-eating grin in place.

"What in your right mind makes you think I'd want to be in charge of that hole or us? And for what we beat the alien didn't we?" asked Bastian, sounding like a tired man returned from a long day of work.

"Seems a snail fell into a nuclear reactor over in Paris. As we speak, EsCargauntua is slowly making its way towards Paris. As for why it's because of these." Monger tossed a small, felt-covered book at Bastian. Catching it with his spare hand, Bastian carefully opened it and felt his heart stop in his chest. The book contained only two pages of material, one side covered in medals of Honor and prestige while the other side held a simple duo pair of dog tags that shared the same last name. Bastian eyes closed and his shoulders sagged as though a heavy weight was placed upon them.

"So… that's how it is…" He snapped the book shut.

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Bastian sighed before taking a long swig of his coffee with two sugars. Now that he was human, for the most part, he needed the caffeine the black brew offered though to be fair, it had been over fifty years since he had a cuppa. As the saying goes, it's the simple things in life one misses the most.

"Do you have room for one more?"

Bastian smiled, his eyes still closed despite the dimmed lights. "Of course." He heard her take her seat at the table that he was himself using more as a chair than anything else. Despite being human once more, Bastian was still partial to high elevations and the table that served Susan so well in the common room of Area 5X was an adequate substitute to the rafters above until his planned renovations were completed

He moved deftly to the side as a large cup dropped down beside him before it was filled to the brim with steaming hot coffee before a gallon or two of cream followed it into the cup.

Bastian turned to regard Susan and blinked in surprise, thankful that the dim lights hid the blush on his face. Susan was still wearing her outfit from earlier which had, pre-shrinkage, fit her perfectly and had become several sizes too large when she had been returned to her normal height. However, as Ginormica, the uniform had grown with her but having barely shrunken down, it wasn't able to match her height increase all too well. The long-sleeved shirt had become a torn tank-top that showed a teasing glance of cleavage and left her midriff bare. He pants could, at best, be described as short-shorts and, assuming she had that one pair, Bastian surmised that she was barefoot as well.

'_Huh… she really looks like Ms. Archer now…_' Bastian looked away, trying to keep from glancing at inappropriate places. "Spare uniform still in the wash?"

Susan nodded, sighing happily at the taste of warm coffee flowing down to her tummy and warming her from the inside. Large as it was, the common room could get cold pretty easily. "I guess this can serve as better sleepwear."

"Hrmm," Bastian nodded, sampling from his own cup. "I suppose it is easier to breast-breathe! Breathe in it than what it was before. If you want, I can assign the seamstresses to make some more clothes for you."

Susan hid her smile behind her giant-sized cup. "Bastian." He shivered and slowly turned to look at her, not surprised to find her leaning forward so they could better see into the other's eyes.

"Yes?"

"Thank you, for everything you've done for me." She leaned forward and pressed a kiss gently against his head, her pursed lips nearly enveloping his face. She pulled back quickly, blushing shyly. "Bastian…?"

"Yes?"

"Would… Would you like to go out?" she asked him, sounding like her shy old self much to his confusion.

Bastian tilted his head in consideration. "Well, it is night out but I'm sure we can—"

"No, no, I mean… go out as in… go _out_?" She twiddled with her fingers nervously.

Bastian might have spent most of his life in prison but he was by no means a fool, and he recognized what Susan was trying to ask him. "Susan…"

"I know, I know, it's so silly isn't it? For weeks all I cared about was getting back to my old life, to… Derek… but looking back… looking at how he treated our relationship… you've done me for me than Derek's ever done since I first met him." She blinked back tears and turned further away from Bastian. "I understand if you don't want anything like that with me, I really do! I mean, c'mon. Who'd want anything to do with me like I am, right?"

He knew she wasn't just talking about her size and Bastian cursed not killing Derek when he had the opportunity, but he had more important matters at the moment. "Susan." But she was knee-deep in babble-mode and was already going on about possibly setting him up with one of her friends. "SUSAN MURPHY!" He roared in the voice of a high-school principal.

"Yes, sir!" She responded out of habit but glared petulantly at the smug smirk on Bastian's face. "That wasn't very nice…"

Bastian waved it aside. "Susan… I'm not going to lie to you, a good part of me still loves Theresa. However," he spoke loudly as she started to turn away from him again, "Theresa… is dead. No science or magic in all the worlds will ever change that. I'll always love her, nothing can change that, but… I'm willing to take a chance at loving again… if you are…"

She was positively beaming with happiness and hesitantly held out her hand to him. He removed his boots and carefully stepped onto the offered limb. Susan brought him close to her face, smiling brightly when she suddenly remembered, "Worlds?"

Bastian sighed, leaning forward to stroke her cheek. "That is a long story… one, I'm sure, is better off forgotten."

"I wouldn't mind hearing it… if you want to tell it."

"… Very well. It begins in the future, in the year is 2056… but I guess the story begins before the beginning… in 1954… where man's worst monster was born… and a new age had begun. The Age… of Monsters…"

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_The End  


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A/N: At long last, Monster Zero comes to a close... I apologize for the delay but I wanted to wait until the proper time for completion and today just seemed to fit. Also, I have made a small story based on the Halloween special, it's located in my other work SnapShots. Now, I'm sure many of you are wondering just who, or what, Bagorah (aka Bastian) really is. Those of you who've read my earlier works I'm sure have an accurate guess and you'd be right. Though this adventure is over, Bastian's story, and the stories of those lost like him, are not over yet.


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